Error in running get_acs()

Hi R team!
 ????Since last Friday 04/04, my team and I have faced an error with running? the 'get_acs()' command from the tidycensus package. The code we ran and the error message we received are shown below. Our troubleshooting efforts showed that:

1. When we run the code with geometries turned off, the code runs as intended, but once geometry is made TRUE the code does not work.
2. We checked geometry = TRUE with various geographies (block group, place, county) and the error remained the same
3. We were still able to download and use the shapefile data from the Census Tigerlines folders online, which led us to suspect the error may be within R since the shapefiles are functional on the Census website.

Thanks for the help!

Code that works (geometry is FALSE here):
#median household income for IL by tract
acs? <- get_acs(geography = "tract",
 ???????????????? table = "B19013", #can turn off if variables specified
 ???????????????? state = "IL",
 ???????????????? year = 2023,
 ???????????????? geometry = FALSE,  #FALSE removes geometry, TRUE keeps it
 ???????????????? cache_table = TRUE)

Code that doesn't work (geometry is TRUE here)
#median household income for IL by tract
acs? <- get_acs(geography = "tract",
 ???????????????? table = "B19013", #can turn off if variables specified
 ???????????????? state = "IL",
 ???????????????? year = 2023,
 ???????????????? geometry = TRUE, #FALSE removes geometry, TRUE keeps it
 ???????????????? cache_table = TRUE)

Error message:
Getting data from the 2019-2023 5-year ACS
Downloading feature geometry from the Census website.? To cache shapefiles for use in future sessions, set `options(tigris_use_cache = TRUE)`.
Loading ACS5 variables for 2023 from table B19013 and caching the dataset for faster future access.
Using FIPS code '17' for state 'IL'
Error : Cannot open "C:\Users\DKittaneh\AppData\Local\Temp\RtmpQpm4Z8"; The source could be corrupt or not supported. See `st_drivers()` for a list of supported formats.
In addition: Warning message:
In unzip(file_loc, exdir = tmp) : error 1 in extracting from zip file
Error: Your geometry data download failed. Please try again later or check the status of the Census Bureau website at https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/

The tidycensus package is a contributed package, it's not part of R. You 
should probably report this to its maintainers at

 ? https://github.com/walkerke/tidycensus/issues

Duncan Murdoch

On 2025-04-09 12:15 p.m., Deana Kittaneh via R-help wrote:

Hi R team!
?????Since last Friday 04/04, my team and I have faced an error with 
running? the 'get_acs()' command from the tidycensus package. The code 
we ran and the error message we received are shown below. Our 
troubleshooting efforts showed that:

1. When we run the code with geometries turned off, the code runs as 
intended, but once geometry is made TRUE the code does not work.
2. We checked geometry = TRUE with various geographies (block group, 
place, county) and the error remained the same
3. We were still able to download and use the shapefile data from the 
Census Tigerlines folders online, which led us to suspect the error 
may be within R since the shapefiles are functional on the Census 
website.

Thanks for the help!

Code that works (geometry is FALSE here):
#median household income for IL by tract
acs? <- get_acs(geography = "tract",
????????????????? table = "B19013", #can turn off if variables specified
????????????????? state = "IL",
????????????????? year = 2023,
????????????????? geometry = FALSE,? #FALSE removes geometry, TRUE 
keeps it
????????????????? cache_table = TRUE)

Code that doesn't work (geometry is TRUE here)
#median household income for IL by tract
acs? <- get_acs(geography = "tract",
????????????????? table = "B19013", #can turn off if variables specified
????????????????? state = "IL",
????????????????? year = 2023,
????????????????? geometry = TRUE, #FALSE removes geometry, TRUE keeps it
????????????????? cache_table = TRUE)

Error message:
Getting data from the 2019-2023 5-year ACS
Downloading feature geometry from the Census website.? To cache 
shapefiles for use in future sessions, set `options(tigris_use_cache = 
TRUE)`.
Loading ACS5 variables for 2023 from table B19013 and caching the 
dataset for faster future access.
Using FIPS code '17' for state 'IL'
Error : Cannot open "C: 
\Users\DKittaneh\AppData\Local\Temp\RtmpQpm4Z8"; The source could be 
corrupt or not supported. See `st_drivers()` for a list of supported 
formats.
In addition: Warning message:
In unzip(file_loc, exdir = tmp) : error 1 in extracting from zip file
Error: Your geometry data download failed. Please try again later or 
check the status of the Census Bureau website at https:// 
www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/